Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
Sierra awoke from a deep sleep to a knock on the door. Aodhan was out of the bed in a flash, pulling on his pants as he crossed the room. Sierra tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes as quickly as possible.
Aodhan yanked open the door to reveal Fia, clad in a robe similar to the one Sierra had worn prior to crawling into bed. Remembering that she was wearing nothing other than the undergarments Fia had given her, Sierra quickly pulled the blanket up over her exposed chest.
“What is it?” Aodhan asked, clearly knowing this wasn’t some sort of social call.
“Conlan. His future has changed.”
Aodhan looked over his shoulder at Sierra.
“He’s planning to come here. We have to think of what to do, and fast.” Fia’s voice grew louder and more urgent.
Sierra gulped, trying to figure out how she could slide out of bed and put her clothes on without dropping the blanket covering her.
Fia somehow knew what she was thinking. “No, Sierra, I think you should stay here.”
Sierra scrunched her eyebrows in confusion. This wasn’t what they had discussed the night before.
Fia turned to Aodhan. “Leave Sierra here. I can hide her if he makes it here before you and Aislan are able to intercept him.”
“But we don’t have a plan.” Aodhan grimaced, likely remembering the time he had just spent escaping prison.
“I know. But there isn’t time to create one. You need to leave now if you’re to intercept the others.” She took Aodhan’s hands and placed them on her head, showing him something in his future.
Aodhan’s mouth drew down into a frown. “Let me say goodbye; I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Sierra wasn’t sure if she was supposed to hear that, but she did, and it made her heart clench.
Aodhan closed the door and turned back toward the bed, crossing the room quickly to embrace Sierra, placing a passionate kiss on her lips.
“It wasn’t my intention to separate us, but after what Fia showed me, it’s for the best. She will tell you more after I leave.”
Tears prickled at the corners of Sierra’s eyes.
“Hey, look at me.” He tilted her chin up so his emerald-green eyes could connect with her brown ones. “We will figure this out. The others will have a plan, I’m sure of it. Just stay with Fia, okay?”
Sierra couldn’t help it; a tear slid down her cheek.
“Don’t cry,” Aodhan begged as he kissed her a second time. “We will see each other again, I promise.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Sierra whispered, thinking of the future she had seen the night before.
“I only ever make promises I intend to keep,” Aodhan replied firmly. “We will see each other again, okay?”
Sierra hugged Aodhan one final time, before he broke away from her to slide on his clothes. Sierra grabbed her new clothes and began slipping them on as well.
“Remember,” Aodhan said, turning back to her one more time as he prepared to leave. “No matter what, stay with Fia. I will come to you when it is safe.”
Sierra didn’t reply as Aodhan closed the door and made his way down the hall.
She finished dressing, stopping by the mirror to try and make her hair somewhat presentable, but by the time she made it to the kitchen, Aodhan had already left.
Fia was sitting at the table, stirring another beverage, a second cup placed at the empty seat across from hers.
“You did the right thing,” Fia assured her, as she slid into the empty seat, grabbing the mug.
“I know,” She sighed. “It was just a lot harder than I thought to let him go.”
Fia placed a hand on Sierra’s. “It’s never easy to let go of those we love.”
Sierra opened her mouth to argue that she didn’t love Aodhan, that they had just started dating, so how could she? But she found the words wouldn’t come.
In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she realized she did love Aodhan. Burying her face in her hands, Sierra groaned.
“It’s okay. He knows. You didn’t have to tell him.”
“But I should have, now, before he left, just in case.”
Fia shook her head. “No, it might have changed his mind. You did the right thing. Like I said, he already knows. No ordinary woman puts her entire life on hold to follow a man around to try and save his world. If you didn’t love him, you would’ve gone back home the minute it was even suggested.”
Fia was right; Sierra had been acting in Aodhan’s best interest for the last few days. Of course, what they were about to do now was in her best interest, but it was also in hopes of making a change to the future she had seen last night.
“So, is Conlan really coming? Or was that the only way you could think to get Aodhan away?” Sierra asked Fia.
Their planning the previous night had been brief; as Fia had seen the plan and there wasn’t much to discuss, but she had mentioned that she would come up with a way to get Aodhan to leave so Sierra could put her plan into action.
Fia shook her head. “I wasn’t lying; you know as well as I do that the Fae can’t.
Conlan’s future hasn’t necessarily changed, but I did see a shift last night.
That shift, however, had nothing to do with the two of you, so I showed Aodhan some of the images from his future which happened to overlap with his, and he made his own inferences. ”
“But isn’t that technically a lie?” Sierra thought back to what Aodhan had said, about how the Fae could kind of lie, but typically didn’t.
“If he had asked me to swear on it, we would have been in trouble, yes, but that’s also why I came in the middle of the night. I couldn’t warn you in advance because I needed your reaction to be real as well.”
Sierra had to hand it to Fia; her plan had worked flawlessly.
“So, what’s next?” Fia looked at Sierra, anticipation creeping over her features.
“Wait, you don’t know what my plan is?”
A slow smile grew on Fia’s lips. “No, I don’t, but I do see lots more images for you now, some of which are activities of us together, but it’s hard to know what is happening when.”
Sierra felt a smile steal over her features as well. “It was that easy?” She felt her heart rate speed up. “To change my future?”
Fia held up her hand, “Not so fast. Remember, this is the future I see for your current path, but you and Aodhan taking different paths has already made some changes, yes.”
Sierra tried to calm her excitement, not wanting to get ahead of herself, considering this was the easy part of her plan. “Well, I…uh…need to know information about the ritual of asking Mother Earth for something.”
Fia’s eyes grew wide. “You’re going to ask her…now?”
Sierra had assumed that Fia had seen the ritual in one of the images in her future. “Yes. I honestly just want to talk to her, but I figure if I’m going to go through all the trouble and face the possibility of a curse, I might as well ask for what I really want.”
“And what’s that?”
“To be able to spend at least a few hundred years solving the magic problem in Sidhe.”